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User blog:ZeVikingSif/How To Make A Decent Series
Hey guys, this is Sif here, and i just need to cut to the chase here: I don't wanna see you people fail. I see a lot of you people simply quit projects you guys promised to be great. And some of these projects have some great concepts, but it's all in execution. It's actually more than execution, but i'm gonna help you out. I'll go over some basic stuff, and expand on it. And remember, give 100%. 110% is for idiots. I'm gonna go over Character, Overall Story, Episode Story, and Writing. I won't give you guys overly major dialogue hints, as i'm not really the best guy to ask. What are waiting for? Let us begin! Character A story is only as interesting as it's characters. For most series i see, people decide to go for a more heroic protagonist, basically a carbon copy of Ben. And you should absolutely not do that. Ben is not the best character, and while he is "fun" and all, can you truly relate to him? Does he have any real flaws, that we ourselves have? Something we can see in him? The answer is a big fat no. We'd like to be Ben, but the honest truth is he is too "perfect" to be real. What you need is a character that actually has dimension. He can't be perfect, but he does try to help out. Look at yourself, what do you see? Do you have anxiety? Depression? Do you have anger management issues? Are you gay? If you have at least one of the four i just listed, then add it in your character. If you want your protagonist to be timeless, lovable, and remembered for years to come, the best way to do that is to add the flaws of yourself. Now you might be asking "Why the hell would i do that? No one would love my hero, and i want him to be the real hero of the story!". Yeah, okay. You can go ahead and do that. But simply watch. Watch as you and the viewers slowly lose interest in your series, and the inevitable cancellation. If you and your audience want to grow interested in the character you've presented, then you have to give him flaws. Something people can see in themselves. For example, if your character is say... lesbian, then you can do a coming out scene. You can introduce, say, a villain. And this guy is gay too, and because he was too scared and was too late to do anything, he just decides to kill his crush or whoever. Imagine your protagonist watching this, and she learns from his mistakes. In say a family meeting, she does indeed come out. You can take this as her family accepting this, or them just... angry? The most important thing is to make it believable. You can't just say that she's lesbian, oh hell no. Add your own experiences into it, or just go deep into the mind of her and say that she just has no sexual attraction for men, that she always loved this one girl. You can't say it, you have to show it. Actions speak louder than words. It doesn't even have to be LGBT themes, it can be anger management. Show him bursting out, and learning to deal with it. After you've placed your own flaws in this character, give him a personality. And no, "heroic" is not a real personality, that's an excuse. Does he love superheroes? Is he shy? Is he aggressive and/or not like to express his feelings? Decide on what you feel is interesting enough, but a personality is not enough. Give him something he always does, does he like to do uppercuts? Does he have a catchphrase (e.g. "Biscuits!")? Add on that. Although, you might wanna give reason/backstory on why he says "Biscuits!". And now, all you need to do is give him a situation. What kind of situation, you ask? I have no earthly idea, but i can give an example. Say, you killed off a villain last season. But before this villain was killed, your character was "unmasked". At the end of your mid-season finale, your character goes home after a long day and sees... HIM. And he knows who you are, he's not dead. And that was the character's mistake, unmasking herself. And that leads into real dangers. And you can go on from here. Give her a situation, and let them unfold. And don't be lazy about it, actually think of a real one. You also need to give this character REAL progression. I mentioned earlier about the LGBT scene, you don't actually have to do it how i said. You can take an entire three seasons-- hell, even five seasons until you do the coming out scene, make it a real payoff moment. Don't waste it. But if you wanna get it over with quick... You can do different kinds of progression, it can even be from a hero to a villain, a villain to a hero, a vigilante to a hero, etc. This might be an extention from earlier, but you can actually do deeper things like religion. Is he a christian? Is he an agnostic? Why? That is exactly how you make a character interesting. And there you go, i've taught you how to do this. Just be original, copy from yourself instead of my examples, and make it make sense. I have mentioned our protagonist, but we haven't gone to our side characters and love interests yet! I'll begin with our love interest first: No. Stop. Do not even write love interests, not at this state. Jesus H. Christ, do not even. Every single one i've seen is so cliched, it might as well belong in an Adam Sandler movie. Either she has just as much personality as a plank of wood, or all she is is just beautiful and thats it. N. O. First off, you want people to care about your love interest, right? Then give her just as much issues as the protagonist. Is she depressed, etc. And please for the love of all things holy, don't give her a cliched tragic backstory. If her dad is dead, fine, but please don't make that her main agenda. Give her something to do. If she's smart, show it. If she's angry, show it. And give her progression too. Hell, is she straight? DO IT. JUST DO IT. If you want your character to feel real, then make her feel real. Maybe she is struggling with anxiety or depression, maybe she does want to help people too, hell, if she is actually straight, then show her progression to like our protagonist. And show why, please. Why does our protagonist like her and why does our love interest like her back? And don't say because she's beautiful, that isn't true love. What is it do we like about her? If you give her her own catchphrases, her own struggles, anything to make her feel just as human as our character is, then we have a reason to care. And make it make sense, show why, and don't tell why. If you wanna make her a hero too, don't borrow from Gwen or any Ben 10 love interest, or Arrow/Gotham/Flash love interest for that matter. Try to be somewhat original. If she's abducted by the villain and now has powers, sure. If no powers, sure. Remember, the love interest is supposed to be real, we're supposed to like her. If you want her to be loved by us, show us she does have problems like us. And now, we move onto our side characters. If you want a sidekick, please don't make him the cliche Kevin. If you wanna borrow from any show, borrow from Arrow, specifically Roy Harper. You can do a lot of interesting dymanics, where maybe the sidekick has similar problems, and is looking for the hero to help, but the hero doesn't actually know what to do, as she is still struggling. Maybe your sidekick is dating your crush or one of your family members, etc. Don't ever get lazy on him though, don't just make him someone to make the hero look good, or just to be backup. No. Make him likeable, and do something interesting. Maybe he accidentally killed someone, and he wants to avenge this person by helping our hero. By saving others. You can get situations where he's actually seeing her in hallucinations, maybe... JUST ANYTHING. Make him interesting. If you wanna add any friends, make sure they contribute to something. Don't make them appear out of nowhere, and don't waste them. Maybe this friend could be the voice of reason, someone that helps out our hero understand her morals. Maybe to help her with her love life, give her advice, just make sure he/she contributes to something. And if you wanna make he/she likeable, do that. If you wanna take notes, again, go to Arrow and take notes from Diggle. Making this character likeable means that if you decide to kill this person off, the audience would feel something. And finally, family. Nothing is more important than family. Make the parents important too, if your real parents argue, then put that in. Make us actually feel bad for our hero, having to hear this. If they're having financial trouble, you can borrow from The Spectacular Spider-Man tv series. Have your hero help or struggle with this. Give them flashbacks, show why they are, show if there's an old enemy, etc. Giving parents something important to do is not as silly as it sounds, it contributes heavily. Aren't your parents important to you, after all? If they're against our lesbian protagonist, then show why. Make it believable, not just "HELL TO THE NO". Make it feel real. If they're okay with this, here's a trick, don't make their reactions "Oh wow!". Make it like "Cool." or something. Adding siblings is your choice, but say your protagonist has a brother and a sister. Maybe the sister is lesbian too, maybe they have things in common. Maybe as your hero struggles to save the day, her sister needs just as much support, and she has to make compromises. Real situations. "Stop the bad guy, or help my sister?". Hell, do that with your love interest as well. And make the outcomes become bad either way, so it feels real. It all depends on the situation you place. But, you don't always have to vote for "Stop the bad guy!". If you wanna be realistic, the first time has to be "Help my sister!". And when that happens, bad outcomes. And that is how you get things done. As for the brother, maybe he was kicked out of his own home. Maybe he is just a petty thug, and our hero tries to help him, but he has real anger management issues and anxiety, etc. Give him redemption. If no redemption, that's cool, make him a bad guy then. Now that we've got that done, let me make this perfectly clear: If you want to be original, do not make our hero's agenda be about a dead family member. Please. Know why? Killing them off during the show will result in more feels from our audience. It will make people actually care and not sigh about how the dead family member has been done over and over. And that leads us to our villain. Ooh, the options. I'll put in these disclaimers: Don't make the father the bad guy, it's been overdone since 2012. Don't borrow from Ben 10. Come up woth stuff on your own. For Season 1, you want to go for someone small, but not personal. This is our hero starting out, after all. Maybe the sidekick's dad is the villain here, and he controls crime in the city. He owns the police and the press, and our hero will get nothing but hate from everyone. But she just keeps powering through it. And at the end of every episode, he talks with numerous people about something. Something called... K.R.O.N.U.S. (For the sake of this example, i'm using K.R.O.N.U.S. from something i made). With each episode, we learn just as much as our protagonist does. And at the end of the season, we are lead to believe it's some sort of giant. Turns out, it's an infectious virus, the opposite of a giant. And this virus, it's killing everyone in the city, with no cure whatsoever. Make the stakes high, whatever you built up from the beginning of the season, make it all pay off here. Realistically, the hero won't always win. Maybe she stopped the virus, but there are still casualties. Maybe she's framed. You have infinite possibilities. But for your Season 2 villain, make it someone personal. Maybe linked to how she got her powers. Just don't make it a cliche, and make it a real threat. Someone who can't be stopped. Whatever you think of, it goes wrong. Every single possibility, it all goes wrong. THAT is how you do a villain. If you wanna make a series long villain, then again, make it personal. Build this person up from the beginning, give him a few appearances. For the sake of this example, lets say he's an L-type villain (Death Note). Make him unpredictable, give him knowledge of her personal life. And of course, there is nothing more frightening than a villain who is like you, and has learned to become even better. I'd like to end it off with a few tips, and that is: Make our protagonist learn from our villains. Yeah. Maybe one is cunning, maybe one is a genius strategic planner, etc. Overall Story This is something you need to plan all the way through before anything else. Your characters are only as interesting as your story. If you want something you truly feel as complete, then don't make it simple. Add complexity, add complications. Introduce things that will be further explained in later seasons. Start out simple, but introduce things as you go along. Characters, relationships, storylines. Each character could have their own story, etc. Make things nobody would see coming. Maybe for the first four episodes, things start out normal and not the best. Then episode 5 you introduce a new character that changes it all, like say, a person with her exact same powers. And she begins to wonder if "it's back". You can kill this person off by the end, but at the end of your first season, introduce someone. An old friend, someone she has not seen in years. And he says an old enemy is back. Keep adding to your complexity and confusion, add storylines with what we know of the characters, dont make random stuff up like an abusive uncle is back, etc. Keep adding to your world, just don't borrow from Ben 10. Her powers on the other hand, you could say that a secret government organization called "The Law" is making superweapons. And she was one of the test subjects. I have not much to say about this, all you have to do is keep adding to your world. Add hidden lore not borrowed from Ben 10. I've said all i needed to, but i can't stress it enough. Make season, or even SERIES long arcs for every one of your characters. And the most important thing you have to take away is: Do not be afraid to change/replace things, no matter how big they are. If you feel something is better, then replace it and rework your story. Episode Story The problem a lot of shows have is that they follow the Overall Story and make that the episodes. You should never do that, as it devalues an episode. I mean it should follow your outline, of course, but if you want your episode to have more meaning, give it a theme. You can't do "This episode will have the theme of survival of the fittest" with an Overall Story, because it would just feel scripted and pointless. Follow your Overall Story outline, and say that this villain you had planned is a government agent spying on people and observing personal information. For the episode, you could make that the forefront and add a theme, or real world commentary. How the government is actually doing this, how we have to stop it. And you can't really do that well with an Overall Story guide. Add additional details in an episode that hasn't been explored or "procrastinated" about in the Overall Story. An episode story should fill out a few voids that are left from the Overall Story. To add true value to an episode, you have to come up with your own storylines for it and not take from the overall. It makes it less about plot and adds so much more to your series than just an interesting plot and characters. It also helps to re-read your episode and revise it, to see if there are any parts you don't like, inconsistencies, etc. To make it good, of course. Writing Let us get one thing straight: Originality doesn't exist, not anymore. Everything has been done. You can do variations, and you can mix and match, but originality doesn't exist. And that is perfectly okay as long as you're trying to tell a story you yourself want to tell. That is perfectly fine. If you feel you wanna tell your story, do it. Nobody is stopping you, and we encourage you to do so. Losing motivation/inspiration is a big deal, and there are three possible reasons why: #Your story could actually be good. But to you, who knows the ins and outs, don't think its good enough, and you try to add more. Give yourself credit if it's truly good. You've done enough. If you wanna make a truly perfect series, that's on you, but don't devalue what you have done, because it might be good. #There couldn't be enough there to fill out 5 or 6 seasons. A true good idea or piece of dialogue is what makes you smile when you read it. What you deserve a pat on the back for. And you have to figure out how you can extend it without making stuff up randomly, because with an interesting enough story and characters, you have a ton of possibilities to extend your series. #Maybe what you need is a co-writer or consultant working with you. No one works alone and succeeds. Not in real movies, tv, or books. Maybe books, but you get my point. You need someone to be your extra set of eyes, to tell you whether it's good or not or what's stupid. And you wanna surprise someone and feel good, obviously, you don't wanna keep it to yourself no matter how much you say you want to. I'd also like to point out that having a co-writter is also important for your show. Because even though we all want to be, we don't specialize in everything. Some of us are better writers than world builders, some are better story advisors than creative stuff, etc. No man alive specializes in everything, and that's why it's good to have two or more co-writers helping you. So you could have multiple specialties. Don't be upset because it's actually impossible, and if you believe in evolution, we are not mentally evolved enough to be all of that. And to end it off, lets talk about dialogue. I'm not a master of dialogue myself, but i'd like to give you these heads up: Dialogue helps things feel real, so read your dialogue out loud and say how you would say them if you were speaking these lines. Binkatong made an entire blog about dialogue, she explains it better than i do, so make sure to check hers out. I also made a forum post about how to write action scenes, you can find that as well. Closing Thank you all for reading my blog, and i hope it helps. Please leave an in-depth comment if possible. I wanted to make this to help those who feel their series isn't good enough, maybe it could help at making it decent. And as always, see you guys later. Category:Blog posts Category:Writing Guides